With Ideo CEO Tim Brown at MIT
My two year old grandson has taken to mixing in the odd "Don't drop me!" along with his usual whoops of delight if I pick him up and whirl him about a bit.
I was reminded of that this week when I ran (with Tim Brown CEO of innovation leaders IDEO) a two hour seminar at a mid careeer MBA course at MIT in Boston. We were talking about how innovation is increasingly applied across an entire customer experience not just product features and performance.
The key principle here is that any new product or service which is to be successful has to address real human needs (rational and emotional) , which are currently not being fully met. (Chapter 4 of my book covers how to come up with products and services like this. )
Anyway at MIT I was talking about the market research results we got after the first few months of Firstdirect - which broadly concluded that "Firstdirect consistently exceeds its customers expectations". That's the prize you get by meeting both rational needs (in this case 24/7 banking) and emotional needs (in this case feeling valued and looking smart). Exceeding expectations generates economic value in greater customer loyalty and lower customer acquistion costs as the word gets out.
One of the students asked a great question - "don't you just raise the bar when you exceed expectations - isn't it better just to meet expectations?"
That made me think .
And what I think is this - raising the bar puts a bigger gap between you and the competition which is always a good thing. You may have to keep innovating to maintain the gap - but that's normal. What is absolutely critical however is that once you have raised the bar you musn't let standards slip. You really disappoint customers that way and they will hate you for it.
Once you've got them whooping with delight because you have picked them up and are whirling them around , remember that in the back of their heads is a little voice saying "don't drop me!"
Congratulations on your website- terrific- functional and looks good too.
Cant wait to read the book- the cover looks interesting.
Great to see Tim Brown- after many years
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